People from across the world paid tribute to Urdu poet Rahat Indori after his death from covid-19 on Tuesday. Yet, a few right-wingers have begun to write critical comments against the late poet.
Vice president of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, Anshul Tiwari, has made some objectionable comments on social media against the poet.
Tiwari has written: “Masjidein qubool thee, bas mandir khatak gaye, Bhoomi Pujan se ahaat Rahat satak gaye (Mosques were acceptable; but temples were intolerable; hurt by Bhoomi Pujan; Rahat passed away).”
Tiwari’s comments went viral on social media. Tiwari is one of the main contenders for the post of president of the state BJYM unit.
State information commissioner Vijay Manohar Tiwari has also put on social media Indori’s couplets over Godhra riots.
The couplets give a carte blanche to the Muslims on Godhra riots. There are reactions on social media to these couplets, too.
The right-wingers have begun to criticise Indori by posting some of his poems to social media.
It has happened for the first time that a group of people, belonging to certain ideology, is criticising a renowned Urdu poet after his death.
Tiwari said he had been present as a listener at the Mushaiara (a poetic symposium) where Indori read out the couplets on Godhra riots.
His reaction is not criticism of anyone; it is the other way of remembering someone, Tiwari said.
Politicians associated with the BJP and Sangh are making comments on Indori. The couplets that he had composed on former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee have also been posted to social media. And the poet is being criticised for that.
At a Mushaira, Indori said Tulsidas had composed the Ramcharitmanas sitting in a mosque. The video of that Mushaira has also been posted to social media.
Nevertheless, there have been diverse views among BJP leaders over the criticism of Indori.
A senior leader of the BJP, Govind Malu, has written on social media: “Our culture teaches us to respect someone who is no more. This has been the reason why we have never been attackers or cruel to anyone.”
The real religion is to show deference to someone who is no more, Malu wrote.
India can neither be Syria nor Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, he writes.
Malu further writes that the world has seen what has happened to those countries, and that Indians cannot be so narrow-minded.
Likewise, Congress spokesperson Durgesh Sharma says making objectionable comments against someone who is no more has never been part of the Indian tradition.
Such mind-set of the BJP youth wing is worrisome, he says.
